DCCC wasting no time in targeting Coffman

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Congressman Mike Coffman, R-Aurora, in his district office.

DCCC wasting no time in targeting Coffman

Congressman Mike Coffman, R-Aurora, in his district office.

DENVER — Just weeks into the new Congress, Democrats in Washington are using the current stalemate over the sequester to try and affect the makeup of the next Congress, already targeting Colorado Congressman Mike Coffman, one of the most vulnerable Republicans heading into the 2014 midterm elections.

On Friday, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee will roll out its first web advertisement of the 2014 campaign cycle attacking Coffman and portraying the Iraq War vet as part of an obstinate Tea Party Congress.

The DCCC blames Coffman for voting to adjourn last week without any deal in sight to avert the looming sequester, $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts in domestic and defense spending set to take effect on March 1 that could cost the country a million jobs.

“Thousands of hardworking families in Congressman Coffman’s district are facing pink slips thanks to his refusal to put middle class families before millionaires,” said the DCCC’s Emily Bittner in a statement announcing the new web ad.

“Americans deserve a solution, not more chaos and manufactured crisis from Congressman Coffman and the Tea Party Congress.”

On Thursday, Coffman, R-Aurora, just happened to roll out his own proposal to avert the sequester, a proposal for $500 billion in targeted cuts to defense spending that he plans to introduce in the House when Congress returns to work on Monday.

Winning Coffman’s seat is critical to Democrats in their effort to win back control of the House in 2014.

Fomer Democratic statehouse Speaker Andrew Romanoff has already announced plans to challenge Coffman, who narrowly won reelection in 2012 over a lesser known candidate, Joe Miklosi, after the redistricting process turned his heretofore safe GOP seat into a competitive toss-up.

“It’s a shame that only three weeks into his campaign Andrew Romanoff is already in bed with Washington special interests,” said Tyler Q.Houlton, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “Not only has Congressman Coffman voted twice to replace the across-the-board cuts in Obama’s Sequester, he has laid out his own responsible solution to this Democrat problem.”